Statistics say you’re more likely to win the lottery than be hit by a meteorite, but that may have just happened to one unlucky bus driver in India. Authorities said that a small celestial body struck a southern college campus, killing a bus driver and injuring three others in an incident initially reported as a bomb.
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The explosion damaged many glass planes of the college buildings, official sources said. “A team from IIA will be visiting the district on Monday to analyse it”, said P.K. Senthilkumari, Superintendent of Police, Vellore.
They claimed two of the college’s gardeners were burning rubbish when they “inadvertently set off the unused gelatine sticks”.
On Sunday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, confirmed that the “mishap” was caused by a falling meteorite.
“Relief of Rs 25,000 each to three students of the engineering college who were injured in the incident”, it added.
The minister also directed the district administration to provide best medical facilities to the injured. They look very similar to earthly rocks but have a burnt exterior.
Government officials at first suspected the blast was caused by explosives accidentally left after building work.
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Meteorites – remnants of asteroids which often hurtle through space but rarely reach Earth – have never killed anybody before, meteor detection website ATLAS said. Well, between 1 in 700,000 and 1 in 250 million.
